...

And when i'm buried and in my grave
tell me then so i will know
your tears may fall to make love grow
the briar and the rose
-tomwaits

Sharing Thursa...

Oh it's time time time, and it's time time time
And it's time time time that you love
And it's time time time
-tom waits



I took a two day workshop last week, "non violent physical crisis intervention". It didn't give me any new moves to try on Amy but it did remind me of my brother and wrestling. Growing up with him, we fought, almost everyday, wrestling actually. We would jump on each other, sit on each other and pound away at arms and legs until they become numb. Sometimes we would get very mad at each other. We also shared our cousin Thursa, whenever they visited one of us would go off in the woods to kiss Thrusa. One time l took her down to the beach to kiss and my brother followed and said it was his turn. It seemed fair so l said okay. Our very last fight was when we each threw a fist, he hit me in the face, l hit him in the face. We just sort of stared at each other and that was the last time we ever fought. I worked with him a while ago, somedays l would get very mad at his gruffness and it would make me sad. I love my brother, l have come to appreciate him in the last couple of years, l appreciate his gruffness, l can see the love in his heart, l can see the twinkle of life in his eyes. It makes me cry...l want him to know he is loved...

broken cigarettes...

All i need's my railroad boots,
And my leather jacket,
As i say goodbye to ruby's arms,
Although my heart is breaking,
-tom waits



...the hood is out of jail, eight months in, now tougher, bigger, and dropping by to see if l have any work. I don't really care about the hood. but Clayton came by and l do care about clayton. He hasn't been by in quite awhile. Came by last night, anxious and with the sky falling sat and smoke a couple broken cigarettes. Laid off from the fish plant, cops looking for him, seems he assaulted someone, says he is looking for all of the people that owe him money. Tiffany won't let him see his daughter. Tears came to his eyes, "they should have put me in the hospital for a couple of days." Clayton just needs to be cared for, just a couple of days, someone to care for him...

life...

"The purpose of art is not a rarified, intellectual distillate.
-It is life, intensified, brilliant life."
-alain arias

...

-john and claire at the queens


"...when the story of the hero's wound is made part of the story of desire,
when the weaving activity of the soul, the work of memory and
imagination, the weaving of one's story, is informed
and suffused with hero's violent spiritual flame."

-eileen gregory (summoning the familiar)

14 years...

 "Sing, sweetness, to the last palpitation of the evening and the breeze."
-st.john perse

  

...my cat died a week ago.
I had my cat since she was a kitten, and we lived on a acerage for her first ten years. She was a great hunter, would bring me daily mice. I remember the first year she caught a bunny, l tried to save it, put it in a box with grass and left it on the porch overnight. The bunny never lived. My cat would kill and eat bunnies, would eat the whole thing, skull, bones and would only leave the stomach. Once she played with a bunny for hours it seemed until finally l had to kill the poor little rabbit. I think my cat was delighted with this, licked my hand as if l had finally learned what l had to do to eat. I never took my cat to a vet, saved the one time to get her fixed. The one time she got really sick l just put her on my bed for a week feeding her with dishes of milk and soft stuff.
I never named my cat, l couldn't think of a name that didn't sound stupid...so l just called her beauty sometimes, fathead when l was mad at her. She always slept with me, under my arm against my chest, didn't matter when l slept, she just would come and join me.
She stopped killing things after l returned from prince albert. I had left her with a friend of a friend for a year while l was away. She was so sickly when l got her back but the first night back, it was as if we had never been apart.
She was very sick the last two or three weeks before she died. She stopped purring. She stopped eating. it makes me cry. Amy and Mike helped me look after her, they loved her while l was away. She loved them.
My cat was so beautiful.

my cat...

l've had my cat for around fourteen years now, she is beautiful. I am trying to make her feel comfortable and l am hoping she is peaceful, she is dying.

huey and muriel...

"My head is spinning round, my heart is in my shoes, yeah
I went and set the Thames on fire, oh, now l must come back down
She's laughing in her sleeve boys, I can feel it in my bones
Oh, but anywhere l'm gonna lay my head, l'm gonna call my home"
-tomwaits


Huey and Muriel

mylove...

In a land there's a town
And in that town there's
A house
And in that house
There's a woman
And in that woman
There's a heart I love
-tw


And shall not loveliness be loved forever.
-euripides

wally...

sticks and stones will break my bones,
but i always will be true, and when
your mama is dead and gone,
i'll sing this lullabye just for you,
and what becomes of all the little boys,
who never comb their hair
-tw



I am going through years of photos, years of stories, trying to put them together someway.
Many many years ago l started photographing on the street, just quick and hurried, like something that would be taken away from me if l wasn't fast enough. Then l met wally, he was the first that l spent time with, that l got to know.
Walter Skulsky died a very lonely man on a mattress in a rooming house. My first encounter with wally was at a corner store. Exchange of small talk and cigarettes. I asked him if l could come over to where he lived and photograph him. Next day l arrived greeted at the door by wally in his well worn long johns. "Hi, remember me, can l come in. I have some cigarettes,"
I set up this big 4x5 camera and shot very quickly as l was sure he would kick me out. We then sat at a small table, it was just a room, a bare mattress, a empty fridge and the bathroom down the hall.
Wally was always quiet never initiating a conversation, however he answered most of the questions l posed to him. I took prints of wally to him and hung them on his wall, l must have seemed very unusual to him. One time he was nude. I took my place across the table as l normally did. I didn't take any pictures.
"fukin, fukin buttons, where am l going to put all these fukin buttons, on my fukin ass." This was wally's reply to my question as to why he didn't wear any of the buttons l had brought him. I always brought him weird stuff, chocolate bar, a old radio.
I went away for the summer, travelled across canada by train. I came to see him, his rooming house was empty, the neighbor next door said they buried him last week, her husband had found him dead.
It struck that wally had died without love, without knowing someone out there loved him.
He died of loneliness...

Bricolage...

Let's put a new coat of paint on this lonesome old town
Set 'em up, we'll be knockin' em down.
You wear a dress, baby, and I'll wear a tie.
We'll laugh at that old bloodshot moon in that burgundy sky
-T.W.



I've just finished giving a five day bricolage workshop, go to artdriftersand see their wonderful work.

sleeping with letters...

a 12 year old's diary...

"i'll get a dollar from my mamas purse
and buy that skull and crossbones ring
and you can wear it around your neck
on an old piece of string"
-tw



Clayton doesn't bring me canadian tire money anymore. ...don't you remember, scroll down and find it, my steal of a deal. Have you forgotten what it feels like to lick a envelope, to send someone something real.

"Now the street's turning blue, the dogs are barking and the night has come
And there's tears that are falling from your blue eyes now"
-tw

...sitting in a victoria cementary the other day smoking my pipe l realized if you were homeless how the cementary would be a good place to sleep at night, there is a cold water tap, and the odd cement shelter, very quiet. It also dawned on me how difficult it must be to find a washroom, no one wants to let you use the washroom in the city. Goddamn l even find it difficult so if you can imagine being perhaps a little scruffy or perhaps not looking like the ideal upstanding type of person, damn.

It's the cool of the evening the sun's goin' down,
i want to hold you in my arms i want to push you around,
i want to break your bottle and spill out all your charms,
come on baby we'll set off all the burglar alarms,
goin' downtown down downtown."
-tw

I also had another thought in the cementary. Every year or so l use to think "boy was l stupid" but...l would then realized what l had learned in the year, l would feel that l was wiser. The last couple of years l didn't get that feeling, yes the stupid one maybe but not the wiser one, until this year...

You see these flower pictures, taken with my cheapdigitalcamera and they are blurry because it is stuck on macro and l can't figure out how to turn that off. The flower pics, like what a 12 year old would put on the front of their diary and it would be so easy to turn this blog into something like what a 12 year old would write in their diary.

Down the shore everything's alright,
you're with your baby on a saturday night,
don't you know that all my dreams come true,
when i'm walkin' down the street with you,
sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.
-tw

My friends ronanddonna, their life, their love, it makes me thrive for that great love.

Le Que Sabe...

"...found an old dog and he seems to like me."
tw




"Sprung from the loins of Aunt Daisy"
This is a painting l did many years ago of Sid Barron. Sid was a painter and for many years a cartoonist for the victoria times and toronto star. Sid was pretty incredible, bright, funny, and always a joy to be around. He told me the story of his aunt when l was photographing him, told me that her name was Daisy and that she was wonderful, full of laughter and always so good to Sid. It was many years later that he found out that aunt Daisy was really his mother.
I ran into Sid's wife "Jesi" last week and she told me that Sid had died last april.
Le Que Sabe

shelter...

...when journeying one must never halt until
wood and shelter are obtained.